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Cherdonna Shinatra to Perform at Velocity Dance Center this Month

Seattle's Cherdonna integrates feminism—and dessert—with drag

By Jim Demetre May 31, 2016

A woman in a yellow costume posing on a blue background.

This article originally appeared in the June 2016 issue of Seattle magazine.

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Cherdonna Shinatra, the “drag/dance bio-fem” creation of Seattle-based dancer, choreographer and performance artist Jody Kuehner, is one of a growing number of drag personas nationwide performed by women. Rather than striving for catty perfection, she aims instead for discombobulation.

Staggeringly tall in her platform heels and lop-sided, sky-high bouffant, and adorned with costumes and makeup that exceed the farthest parameters of the genre in their disruptive flamboyance, the comic Cherdonna displays a vulnerability and impulsiveness on stage that inevitably gives way to heartbreak and regret.

Clock that Mug or Dusted, a new work commissioned and produced by Velocity Dance Center’s new Made in Seattle dance development program, is the second part of her three-part suite titled one great, bright, brittle alltogetherness. While Cherdonna’s work has consisted of pure gender-bending physical comedy, this is described as an homage to feminist performance artists such as Janine Antoni and the avant-garde dance artist Anna Halprin, who used the body as a canvas for social change, rebellion, community and personal expansion.

The performance— which will result in cake smeared upon a huge canvas—promises to combine classic feminist ideals with present-day queer drag vision. 6/2–6/5 and 6/10–6/12. 7:30 p.m. Prices vary. Velocity Dance Center, Capitol Hill, 1621 12th Ave.; 206.325.8773; velocitydancecenter.org

 

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